


What Never Was

by willowoak_walker



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Major Character Undeath, Season: Winter in Hieron, Spoilers for Winter in Hieron 29: Slow Justice, fixit fic, there may yet be divine shouting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 09:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14691750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoak_walker/pseuds/willowoak_walker
Summary: Normally, Fantasmo would tease his friend about delusions of godhood. Normally...Fantasmo and Samot talk after the Chancellor's murder.





	What Never Was

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harpydora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harpydora/gifts).



“How did I get here?” Fantasmo asks eventually. He’s sitting beside Samot at one of the Mage-King’s work tables. The papers spread before him are familiar. Tracking the heat, the dark, the holes in the world. But there’s something tugging at the corners of his mind.

“Hm?” Samot says, disingenuous.

“Last I recall, I was in Rosemerrow,” Fantasmo says. “And Hadrian had just killed someone, someone I need to ask…” He fumbles hopefully through his papers, but -- no. If he managed to get Hadrian to talk to the corpse, he didn’t take notes on it. And he would have. Is he not the great Fantasmo?

“Yes,” Samot says. His gentle sadness is a startling contrast to his normal exuberance, but Fantasmo has heard it before. Most often when Samot speaks of his long-dead son and husband. “You were in Rosemerrow.” He reaches out to rest a gentle hand on Fantasmo’s shoulder. “Hadrian was about to tell you that you were a shell, an identity made by the mage Arell.”

“Oh,” Fantasmo says. He remembers. He remembers … far more than he wishes to. “Oh,” he says again, and drops his head into his hands. Samot frees Fantasmo’s hair from its tie and strokes his fingers through it.

Like Throndir with his dog.

Like a parent with a child.

“You are too real to be unmade,” Samot says, soothing. “You made mistakes, you learned, you traveled. You slew a word-eater. You saved a paladin. These things are not nothing.”

“But-” Fantasmo begins.

“Mm?” Samot says. He’s braiding Fantasmo’s hair now.

“Surely, I died?”

“Yes,” Samot says. “You did.” He runs a gentle hand down Fantasmo’s back. “But I am death these days. And I hold you here.” Normally, Fantasmo would laugh. Normally, he would tease his friend about delusions of godhead. Normally --

Fantasmo looks down at his half-translucent hands. “You hold me here?”

“Until you choose to go.”


End file.
